VNA of Ohio Blog

In July, we asked a few of our caregivers to talk about our emergency assistance program known as the Patient Emergency Fund. Caring for patients at home, our home healthcare caregivers are better able to address true patient needs. They told us incredible stories of how the Fund has made a real difference for patients in the past and continues to be an important safety net for patients that we serve. The goal of the emergency assistance is to help our patients focus on healing, recovery and regaining their independence.

"When someone’s utilities are shut off and they’re looking into the possibility of 'you might have to go into a nursing home' that’s very scary and that’s worrisome. You’re really not able to look beyond that if you don’t know where you’re going to be living next.

When people are taking care of their loved ones, they’ve quite often left their job you know so income across the board has changed, not just for people we can identify as having a lower income but a lot of people are paycheck to paycheck in our society and that loss of income puts us in a situation where it’s hard to pay the electric bill or buy food.

So whatever the donation might be, what comes out of that are those things. I can rattle off to you all these things but I think it’s more of the connected spiritual part, 'you’re not alone' and that hero coming in when you think no one is coming."

The Patient Emergency Fund has been absolutely wonderful for my patients because a lot of the clients I work with have lymphedema. When you have chronic swelling that fluctuates in your feet and ankles, footwear is really hard to find and it’s very very expensive to get custom made shoes.

I know that the emergency fund can be used for a lot of different things. Be it a one-time thing or something that will last for a long time, any help is help so that’s good.

The Patient Emergency Fund has helped our patients in many ways. We’ve had patients who didn’t have furniture and they moved and they used all their dollars to move and they didn’t have anything in their house. The Patient Emergency Fund paid for that, for the Furniture Bank to come out and put furniture off at people’s homes. We’ve paid for rent, we’ve paid for people to move. People are on fixed incomes, their checks get garnished, you know, stuff happens so that fund is there.

People will move into a home and they have a home and someone helped them get the home but there’s nothing in there so it helps them be comfortable, it helps them have stability, it helps them feel like that is their home. And the furniture is donated so whatever they get, they’re very, very grateful for and they will make it work.

The response is just so appreciative, thankful, our patients knowing there’s something there in a real time of need. The patients that I work with are already so appreciative of our services, our comprehensive services – social work, nursing speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy – but to have something that they can get help from in a time of a crisis, in a time when they’re really in a bind, they’re just very appreciative.